A Chance For A Better Life
by xxcherryblossoms32xx
Summary: When Sakura gets betrayed by her most precious people, who will she turn to? ItaSaku, very slight SasuSaku
1. Chapter 1

Hey everyone! This is my second story here, so I hope it turns out somewhat good. I've been feeling a little betrayed and stabbed in the back, so I feel I could relate to what Sakura would be feeling in this chapter. Also I'm super nervous cause lacrosse tryouts r comingsoon and i'm going 4 freshmen!! So i might not post for a while on this story or Somewhere I Could Belong, so just bare with me!

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"My life is seriously fucked up." Sakura said as she stared down at the village she had sworn an oath to protect, but had ended up betraying her.

* * *

Sakura sat there, looking, and remembering what had gone wrong.....

* * *

Sakura had just gotten back from a mission that had lasted about a week. She was sent on an S ranked mission to go assassinate a lord that had been causing Konoha some trouble and had almost started a war against Konoha from an uprising group of rebels.

Tsunade had figured that if you took out the leader, the organization will disband when they didn't have a boss to order around a bunch of low lives.

If not, she was just going to send Sakura in to take the rest of them out.

After Sasuke had left, then Naruto when he had been gone for 2 years to go train, she had thought to herself that she had to get stronger.

She had spent two years training her strength, along with her medical ninjutsu as to develop into a better kunoichi with Tsunade.

When she was 16 and Naruto had returned to Konoha, along with the new arrival of teammates, Sakura had gotten stronger as to not be a burden and have to rely on others to help her out of trouble.

After a year or two, she had taken the exam to become a Jonin and passed with flying colors. After another few years, she had made her way up the ranks, getting bored with only A ranked and B ranked missions, and had made it into ANBU.

When she was 20, she had become a hunter-nin and worked any special, high ranked requests under the hokage, completely devoting herself to protecting the village, while still working at the hospital as the chief, taking over for Tsunade so she could get more paperwork done.

As all this was going on, taking exams, the missions, training harder, working, trying to keep her social life intact, and having a love life, some things had to give so she could excel in her work.

Sakura didn't really have that much of a love life, sure, she had a thing with Kiba but they had both gone there separate ways, and then she had a little something with Naruto, to see if there was anything there. But Naruto had noticed Hinata's affection to him after a while and they were more brotherly sisterly now than anything.

Sakura decided that if she couldn't find love now, when would she, so she focused more on other things.

Then, Sakura had started to let go of her social life. It wasn't really her fault, but she may have ignored a few of her friends by accident, when Tsunade had wanted her to read up on some report or a new jutsu that was on need to know basis's, and Sakura had fit the bill.

Ino and her had made up there long dispute, after they both realized that Sasuke was a bastard, and had become better friends than ever.

But after a while, Ino had hooked up with Shikamaru and couldn't spend a lot of time with Sakura, and Sakura began to focus more on her work.

The same thing happened with all her other friends, TenTen, Hinata, and Temari had all found there someone specials. Even Lee and her other guy friends that she would spar with sometimes had found other people and had begun to see her less and less.

When she would walk down the streets, the cherry blossom of Konoha was barely even noticed any more.

Even though Sakurawas trained to now be a cold hearted killer, she still had those moments when she would turn back into her naive 12 year old self that had gotten crushed when she had been made fun of or been rejected by Sasuke when she went on ignored by some of her closest friends.

Now every time that she would say hi to someone she knew, they would act like they didn't even know her, or worse, not even acknowledge her.

* * *

Sakura could deal with everyone in her life pushing away from her, but she had finally reached her breaking point.

When all of her friends didn't even know she existed anymore, she had looked to two people she thought would never betray her.

This was where everything fell apart.....

* * *

Tsunade was the first one to set a crack in her already fragile heart.

When Sakura was still a Chunin, there had been an attack on the village. Sakura didn't know about this because she had been sent over to Suna to go over some political business with Gaara, the Kazekage of Suna.

When she had gotten back, she had found out that her parents had been killed in the attack, as they were both sent to the front lines of battle when the attack had happened.

There names had gone down on the same stone that Kakashi had visited, and now, she visited it everyday, at midnight, to look upon the names of the most important people in her life, the ones that she had failed to protect.

That had helped fuel her to become stronger and she had already been studying under Tsunade. Tsunade had accepted Sakura as a daughter of sorts, and helped Sakura in the best motherly way that she could.

But after a while, when they had also started to spend less and less time together, and people had started to talk about Sakura behind her back, that they began to grow apart.

Tsunade had abandoned Sakura for a new apprentice, Karin, who had wandered to Konoha after Sasuke had disbanded his Team Hebi, even though Sakura had far surpassed Tsunade in skill, but she had abandoned her on the eve of her parent's death which Tsunade should have known was the one day a year where Sakura was her weakest.

"Sakura, front and center." Tsunade had said that day. 'This is weird; Tsunade never talks to me that way unless it's for a mission.' Sakura thought as she walked and stood up straight in front of her desk.

"As much as I hate to say this, I will have to let you go as my apprentice. I have found someone better and who is more willing to learn from me then you are. You may keep your job at the hospital, but you will no longer be my apprentice and therefore, may only report here for mission debriefings and work. You may go." Tsunade had stated coldly, no emotion or regret in her voice at all.

At that, Sakura had stilled and put one of her masks on to shield the hurt written on her face. This _Karin_ had turned even her friends against her, and now she had only one person left the she could turn to.

With a bow and a "Hai, Hokage-sama." Sakura turned and walked out of the building, and then made a mad dash towards the memorial rock and cried all night.

* * *

Ever since Naruto had failed to bring Sasuke back for her, they had become so close that she never wanted to be apart from him. They both relied upon each other to lean upon if one of them had 'one of those days', where every thing they did seemed hopeless.

A few days ago, Naruto had struck her deep.

She had run into Naruto in Tsunade's office when she was reporting back for a mission. Naruto had popped in right when Sakura had finished and he had talked quietly to Tsunade.

'What is with everyone, they're not themselves lately.' Sakura thought. **'Have you ever thought that maybe it's you that has changed?' **Inner Sakura replied.

Sakura thought about that. She had changed her outfit to black baggy capris, a black belly shirt that fit her curves she had received when she turned 18 with a fishnet shirt that reached her elbows, and had black, fingerless gloves on. She had a blood-red scarf that was wrapped around her pale neck that reached down to her hips and flowed evenly. She had also changed her red headband to a black headband.

She had become more solitary, taking time to only go out of her apartment when she wasn't on a mission or working, which was rare if she had any alone time.

'Ehh maybe you're right, but why would Naruto act so different, I spend as much time as I can with him.' Sakura wondered. **'No clue.' **Inner Sakura responded.

When Sakura was excused at the same time Naruto was, she automatically fell into step with him, but received a glare that made her steps falter.

"Is something the matter, Naruto?" Sakura asked quietly.

After a while of walking, Naruto turned around and stopped, all the while glaring at her.

"Why the fuck are you even in this village if you hate it so much?" Naruto snapped angrily.

"Ehh?" Sakura responded, not even knowing what he was talking about.

"Karin said that the reason you haven't been around was that you were meeting secretly with an organization set to kill everyone in this town, you traitor." Naruto replied furiously.

Sakura knew that anyone accused of being a traitor by Naruto meant that he was seriously pissed off and would have to, at that point, hate that person with a passion.

"And you believe her, Naruto? I would never betray Konoha, you of all people should know that." Sakura responded.

But Naruto was too furious to listen to how ridiculous he sounded and said, "Karin has been accepted by everyone here and you just treat her like shit. You're just like she said. Why don't you just follow after you're precious _Sasuke-kun_and get the fuck out of this village, better yet, why don't you go join the Akatsuki and help them kill me, because I never want to see your face again."

Sakura stepped back a bit, and winced at the harshness in his voice, not believing what he just said. It had turned out then, that Karin had taken away everything that was ever meaningful in her life. Naruto stormed off in the other direction leaving Sakura there with an intense look of pain on her face, alone on the street.

The last part of Sakura's heart had just broken.

* * *

So there Sakura was, staring at _her_ village that she had just left, obviously not needed anymore by her friends, so she had packed her things.

Sakura couldn't believe that her _friends_ would want that of her. After all she went through to help protect her precious people, she had none left to protect...

With one last look, Sakura took out a kunai and made a slash through her headband, marking herself as a missing-nin.

* * *

Sakura sped through the woods, trying to get as far away from her past as possible. She knew that as soon as Tsunade knew of her departure, she would have a lot of people chasing after her trying to kill her.

Sakura had gotten into the bingo book when she had reached Jonin, like Kakashi had, because of all the missions that she had taken on and her knowledge of classified jutsu's.

Sakura had even spent time creating her own jutsu's once she had gotten the hand of them. She focused more on wind and earth based jutsu's, which combined with her monstrous strength and medical knowledge, made her a dangerous enemy to anyone.

* * *

And so the story begins, where the exiled cherry blossom of Konoha makes the fatal decision to fall in love with a dangerous criminal that could possibly mend the heart that was once broken by the ones she used to love.

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Sorry i had to cut it short guys! I'm uber tired and i wanted to get this story up before i forgot about it. Reviews r awesome, and you'll get free cookies if u do!!! hope you liked it, tell me if i should keep with this story in ur review! promise that there'll be more ItaSaku in the next chapter.

~ xxcherryblossoms32xx


	2. Chapter 2

Hey guys!! Deepest apologies for taking so long to update so everyone gets cookies *gives you awesomely amazing cookies* The good news is that I made fresh. Lax and I've been so busy with it that I haven't had time to update but seasons over and now I just have regents so I should be able to much more. Thanks for all the great reviews, love all you guys!!

P.S. for StrawberryBlossom-Chan: thx for the review and the reason he believed Karin instead is I needed a reason and I hate Karin so I just went with it lol plus more will be explained.... probably in later chapters.

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Sakura jumped through the trees swift and skillfully as she hurried away from Konoha. She needed to get away as fast as she could before someone informed on her that she was gone. As she thought about where she should go, she went through a mental inventory of the bag she had brought that was softly thumping on her shoulders.

'Okay, so I brought one pair of civilian clothes to blend in..... food pills for a week...... extra shurikens and kunai.... the katana I got from my parents strapped onto my back..... two double blade daggers attached to my thighs... and some of my pictures I managed to grab.' She went over quickly.

'**Think you grabbed enough?' Inner Sakura asked, with an actual serious tone in her voice.**

'Probably but I have some money stocked up in my other places for whenever I need to buy something I'll use.'

You see, Sakura actually got paid _very_ well for all the missions she went on. Although she offered to not take the reward money from Tsunade, she had insisted on it. So Sakura took the money and invested it into vacation houses of sorts. She barely ever went to them though, but kept them fully stocked of clothes and instant ramen, a taste she had acquired from hanging out so much with Naruto.

When Sakura had thought about that, a pained look came across her face. _Naruto_..... she remembered that one time especially....

* * *

_It was right after Sakura had gotten back from her first assassination mission. Her silky short pink hair was now soaked with thick crimson blood. It had never insanely bothered her before by killing a 'bad guy', but when she had to do it alone without her teammates, coping with it was dreadful._

_She walked shakily into the gates, trembling as she went. She slowly made her was to the tower, and as she did Naruto had spotted her._

"_Sakura-chan! How'd you're mission go?!" He shouted as he ran towards her. As he got closer, he noticed the distant look in her eyes and how she was quivering so much._

"_Sakura? Are you okay?" Naruto asked to which he got a head nod as she kept walking when she suddenly stopped and he saw her start to sway. He rushed over just in time to catch her as she passed out, quickly putting his arms around her shoulders and under her knees, he carrying her to his apartment._

_Sakura awoke on a soft bed with a frog quilt, sitting up quickly she noticed she was in Naruto's apartment and she heard the shower running. Then she took more notice to what she was wear, or lack of. She was in just a shirt with her panties and bindings still on, and the shirt smelt like Naruto and was big on her, so she assumed it was his. She also noticed her hair was wet, and unlike the cold blood that had clotted her hair together before, it was washed and warm still._

_The shower had stopped when she was thinking about these things, and Naruto came out with shorts and a shirt on, his hair still damp._

"_Oh, Sakura-chan! Are you feeling any better now?" Naruto asked. Before she could answer, her stomach growled loudly._

"_Of course you're hungry, duh, my bad Sakura-chan." Naruto murmured as he ransacked his kitchen in search of food. All he could come up with was some instant ramen he pulled out of his cupboard and smiled sheepishly as he heated up water._

_He came back and handed her the cup, and sat there eating with her, not pressuring her to talk but softly encouraging her to tell him what had happened._

_And that's how she got addicted to instant ramen, from the many times something happened to one of them, they would automatically get ramen or sit at one of their places and eat it until they had gotten everything out.

* * *

_

Those were the times with Naruto she had to forget about, before she gave up on everything she could do because she wanted things to go back to the way things were.

Sakura wasn't paying much attention to where she was going and missed a tree branch, coming down hard as her stomach hit one with a lot of force. She fell the rest of the way to the ground, spitting up some blood when she finally sat up. She wiped it away and probed her stomach with healing chakra to fix any internal bleeding.

Sakura stood up while using a few... choice words... and then suddenly went still.

She heard the tiniest of rustling, only a skilled hunter-nin would be able to hear, and sent out a blast of chakra to find any signatures. What she noticed surprised her, 2 Akatsuki were in the area, and that's what scared her. She was in a deserted forest, where almost nothing was located and it was hard to track anyone through, hence the reason she used it.

* * *

She couldn't think of any reason the Akatsuki would want anything to do with her, but if they wanted her, she couldn't accept because that would be the ultimate betrayal to Konoha, even if it didn't matter anymore, she wouldn't be involved if it cost the people she once cared about anything.

She quickly did a jutsu she hadn't thought of using before and teleported herself the rest of the way out of the forest, about 200,000 miles, to the edge where she could easily get to her nearest apartment before Akatsuki found her.

She hated using that justu, because it's one of the forbidden jutsu's she had learned from Tsunade, and because it takes years of training and still depletes almost all of ones chakra. It also leaves an explosion of chakra that she knows the Akatsuki would pick up on, but then it leaves the trail cold. Sakura took out a few soldier pills and quickly chomped them down. She made her way into the town, going straight for her apartment.

* * *

Itachi looked idly at Kisame as they followed the kunoichi through the woods. For a former ANBU and hunter-nin, she was pretty dense to not notice them. She had a good pace going though; he had to admit, for it was truly hard to keep up with her. He noticed, however, that she was slowing down, as if she was loosing her focus onto something else.

'Hmm, whatever, easier for us then if she's not concentrating.' Itachi thought.

They were tracking her down for 2 reasons, one of then related with Akatsuki affairs, the other for his own interest.

He wanted to see the girl that consumed and had the power to change the actions of his little brother.

All of a sudden, she fell and hit a tree branch, then looked like she was unconscious as she fell further to the ground. He felt a sudden urge to jump and catch her before she hit the ground, but pushed it away as feeling sympathy for the girl if she died..... wait that wasn't right.... Uchiha Itachi doesn't feel _sympathy_.

Trying to get a moment of weakness out of his mind he watched as she spit up blood, getting worried if she was actually okay. As soon as he thought that, he wanted to kill himself. Was he getting _worried_ about girl he had only read about? He knew the consequences of getting attached to things; they only end up in misery and sorrow.

He focused on remaining stoic as the girl rose to continue on her way. Kisame was about to follow when his cloak brushed against some leaves. They figured she wouldn't notice but froze where they were when they saw her stand up rigidly. She then did a sweep which they felt and couldn't tell if she knew they were there, since it takes a highly skilled ninja to detect their signatures.

She suddenly, and without warning did rapid hand signs, and suddenly disappeared from site. It left a huge cloud of her chakra behind, and he realized what she did.

"This kunoichi is more skilled then we thought, Kisame." Itachi stated as he recognized the forbidden transportation jutsu she used.

* * *

Sakura opened the door to her apartment and the room was flooded with light. This was probably the last time she would see this place, because eventually Konoha would find all her places she privately rented, and Akatsuki was on her tail and would no doubt, trace her here.

She walked across the wooden floor and threw her bag onto her couch. She disposed of the clothes she was wearing, took her hair down from the small ponytail she had put it up in, and changed into a black cami with dark green arm warmers. There was a dark green hood attached to the cami and she put on a black mini-skirt that frayed longer in the back with dark green boots that reached up to her thigh. She grabbed the extra money and weapons she could find, along with anything else she would need, and locked the door. She headed for the window and since it was on the 4th story, she jumped to a neighboring roof top while pulling the hood over her hair and went to the edge of the town.

* * *

Sakura was a way away from the town and decided she'd set up camp next to a river. She set up next to large tree and started a small fire going. Then she went towards the river and striped down until she was in her underwear while folding her clothes and dove in, enjoying the fresh water until it started to get really dark when she finally decided to catch some fish. She got out and walked back with her clothes in her hand because she figured no one would see her.

Sakura cooked the fish and some roots and plants she had found, and finished them off. She went through her bag, reaching for the photo's she had. She pulled them out and looked them over slowly, remembering each moment they were taken.

There was one that was taken when Naruto had finally made Jonin, with all of Rookie 9 there, minus Sasuke and plus Sai of coarse. There were a few of just the girls and the special moments. Sakura then turned it to one of Tsunade and Naruto and her, and she sat there shaking.

'I can't believe they did this to me.... I thought they actually cared for me.' Sakura thought as she sat there as tears started to fall down her porcelain cheeks. She took all the pictures and threw them into the fire, except for the last picture she held in her hands, that she would never want to lose.

She laid down on the ground and fell into a fitful sleep, dreading tomorrow.

* * *

Itachi sat there, on a tree branch near by Sakura's camp, watching how weak this kunoichi was. She was leaving herself vulnerable to attack, when she was swimming and sitting by the fire.

"Pathetic." Kisame said as they watched her sit there crying as she looked at the pictures.

Itachi squinted his eyes to see her better, because of his sharingan, his vision was becoming incredibly worse every day. He couldn't see her exact features, but he could see her pink hair and black and green wardrobe, as she was looking at the pictures.

She surprised him when she suddenly threw the pictures into the fire and put on a stoic face much like the one he always wears.

"Hmm, maybe not Kisame. Either way we'll take her later tonight." Itachi said.

"Fine by me, as long as Samehada can get a bit out of her rocking bod." Kisame said smirking. Itachi ignored the idiot, like he always did. Kisame was just a horny enlarged fish and had the brain size of one.

'I have no clue how he made it into the Akatsuki.....' Itachi thought to himself while slightly shaking his head. "Go ahead; just don't kill the girl while you're at it."

* * *

A few hours later, when Sakura was deep asleep, Kisame dropped to the ground, getting Samehada out. Suddenly Sakura sprang up and took a defensive stance.

"I was wondering when you were going to come out, Hoshigaki Kisame." Sakura said with instantly fierce face. Sakura had fallen asleep, but she sensed someone and could only find Kisame's chakra signature in the area, so she figured it would be easy enough to trick him.

Sakura slid on the gloves she had tucked into her skirt and pulled out a war fan she used with her wind justu's and pulled out a double dagger with her other hand. She had started using these new weapons that Gaara had given to her as a gift, and she took a liking to them. Kisame charged at her with his sword and swung down just as Sakura put up the dagger and struggled with his power so it came down to brute strength. Sakura managed to use her chakra enhanced strength to push up and off of him and pushed him off the ground, so she went under him and kicked him in to the forest where he knocked down about 70 trees.

He bounced up, only taking a little damage to his lower ribs, and started on hand signs, then called out, "Suiton Daibakufu no Jutsu", as a water cyclone started for Sakura.

Sakura shouted out "Daitoppa Kamaitachi", as she blew a stream of wind and used a large amount of her strength to hit the air with her hand fan and have enough pressure to settle the water out and push it the other way. This was one of the jutsu's she had combined to work with her weapons and cut through almost any attack.

"Kokuangyo no Jutsu." Sakura said as she wanted the upper hand, not waiting for Kisame to recover from being slammed into more trees.

The battle field then covered in darkness, leaving Kisame confused and on guard. What Sakura didn't know was that Itachi was watching the whole time and didn't like this turn of events as his partner was blindly beaten as Sakura dodged in and out of his water shield he put up. Itachi activated his Sharingan and could see everything clearly.

Itachi snuck up behind Sakura stealthily and tried to knock her out, but she found his presence and quickly turned around grabbing his hand. She turned around and knew not to look him in the eye, aware he could cast Tsukuyomi on her, but she couldn't help herself.

Sakura stared into Itachi's eyes and was mesmerized by how deep and mysterious they were.

Itachi stared into Sakura's eyes and noticed how emerald green they were to him and shone in a certain way he couldn't name. The darkness was slowly starting to fade and Sakura opened her mouth to say something.

"Are you..... that guy..... from so long ago?" Sakura asked. She was referring to a time on a mission where she could clearly remember eyes holding so much genius and intellect but she couldn't see his face.

She was about to ask another question, to which he would've answered because he, too, remembered her face and felt a connection from a past time to her. But just as she opened her mouth, a searing pain went through her back as Kisame shredded her skin with Samehada.

At the intense pain, Sakura let out a cry and fell to the ground where Itachi knocked her out with a sad look in his eyes. He wiped it away when Kisame stood up from his attack and put his blank expression back on.

"Come on, let's go. We need to get her back to Leader soon." Itachi said bluntly before putting Sakura up on his shoulders.

They started off back to their base, and for what fate should Sakura meet when she got there?

* * *

There you go guys, another chapter! I worked for like 3 hours on this one cause I wanted to finish, but I kept getting distracted, so sorry its short =( Anyways, Reviews are nice, plus I NEED IDEA'S!!!! Please email me if u have any requests for either of my stories.

Review please?!?!!?

Oh and for those of you still reading my stories, the first one to guess what's gunna happen next will be announced in my next update! So keep reading and reviewing and it just might be you!!- (that sounded like an infomercial .)

~ xxcherryblossoms32xx


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